M@rsouin’s short résumé.

Created in 2002 thanks to the Breton Council support, M@RSOUIN (for Môle Amoricain de Recherche sur la SOciété de l’information et les Usages d’INternet, ie Armorican Mole for Research on the Information Society and Uses of the Internet), is a research team working with public and private partners on the uses of ICT. It is built on Breton Social Science Research Centre workforces.

In five years, it has become a major actor in researchs on ICT uses, developping cooperation with firstly regional, but also national and European public institutions and firms.

More precisely, we propose expertises in ICT today uses, ICT products marketing, design studies of existing or in development productions, juridical analysis of the offers (ex. P2P solutions), thematic or sectoral investigations (ex. ICT and sea food industry), real or simulated data collection and analysis, business models construction and evaluation.

Our main research facilities are:

recruitement of users/citizens for testing new services, directly or in collaboration with local communities; statistically significant selection process, and privacy protection.

usages analysis of existing products and services (access to sociological studies, case studies such as the analysis of the fishermen community), also methods of co-development related to ICT, with ergonomics researchers specialised in MMI and mobile products.

Some illustrative examples of results obtained within the framework of M@rsouin include:

the fact that elder people do not need ICT devices to improve their health care and diagnosis when living in isolation, but use them to “keep in touch” with family and friends. This “social use” is much more important to them than the medical help provided by these devices (link).

Fishermen, use different ICT devices such as internet radio access or Inmarsat standard C satellite connections to keep in touch with buyers, electronic marketplaces, and support teams (harbours, weather forecasting agencies) but also to communicate among themselves the nest fishing locations in order to sometimes overcome EU regulations obligations, perceived as too much stringent (link).

B&Bs in countryside have not a strong practice of Websites design. Our investigations have shown that when factors such as nostalgia (exemplified by old farms pictures), emotional experience related in electronic Guest’s books and direct experience told by real customers, are put on the B&B website, this improves the booking rates for the accommodations. Accompanying music may also help (link).

For people in difficult social position, Internet access may be an important integration factor. However, direct access is generally not accepted: a mediated access provided by a social worker in a location perceived as an institutional reference point is necessary, particularly for women who otherwise would have limited their social contacts to a strict minimum (link).

Many of Marsouin’s researchers have an experience in collaborating with industry and product designers. For example,

Andre Thepaut (ENST Bretagne) and Simone Pennec (University of Western Brittany) have designed a TV + Internet access device enabling persons in isolation to access their family and friends. Their research has been supported by SFR mobile operator as well as AMF (association running the yearly charity event, Telethon).

Dominique Boullier (University of Rennes II) is running a Lab in Cité des Sciences de la Villette in Paris (Lutin lab) partnering with a user’s club including France Telecom, TF1, Bordas publishing Group etc, to test new ICT usage. It recently ended the ITEA “Passepartout” project, funded by the EU and involving several manufacturers including Thomson, Alcatel and Philips. A similar lab, focused on will be installed by Dominique Boullier in Rennes.

Nicolas Gueguen (University of South Brittany) has been involved in many ICT evaluations including the impact of music on websurfer’s behaviour. He also works on the "value" of on line résumé, or on-line "meeting/date" Web services, in partnership with Meetic.